Consumers are increasingly using kiosks to conduct business with enterprises. The kiosks come in a variety of sizes and are used for a variety of purposes. Some kiosks are drive through, such as fast food establishments, pharmacies, banks, and the like. Other kiosks are stationary located in gas stations, airlines, grocery stores, department stores, and the like.
In addition to this level automation transforming the industry, consumers are performing more and more transactions using their cell or smart phones. For example, consumers can not use bar codes or QR codes to check in through airport security, make purchases at point-of-sale terminals via their phones, check in to sporting events, and others.
One area that has really not experienced much automation for transactions via phones is the car rental industry.
One reason for this is that the traditional car-rental business processes must tradeoff between customer convenience, rental car company risk, and rental car company labor costs.
In attended environments, human attendants are typically used to perform simple tasks during check-out and check-in of rental cars, such as verification of the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), mileage, fuel level, and checking for damage before and after a rental. This is expensive for the rental company, and can be slow for customers as they have to wait for an available attendant to check in and checkout.
In unattended environments, lack of human verification can lead to disputes between rental car companies and customers as a lack of data acquisition at the time of rental or return creates a situation where the “facts” from the customer and rental company perspective can be at odds. This can occur as a result of undocumented damage, incorrectly documented mileage or fuel level.